[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/07/30/viewers-giv...
Do you really think that some silly advert made by the marketing department at Apple has any relevance to whatever the reasons were for the head of CPU design for iOS devices had for leaving?
Things might be changing for the worse inside Apple, but taking these two datapoints and assuming that something big is going wrong in the company seems to be a conclusion that isn't supported by the facts.
Falling short with national TV ads shown during the opening ceremony of the Olympics is a big deal for a company that until recently showed mostly amazing ads on TV. Losing a person who led CPU design for the company's fastest-growing businesses is also a big deal for a company that considered having that person a major coup.
Could you imagine either of these things -- lousy ads on a major TV event, key person departing -- happening while Jobs was running the show?
--
Edit: changed "only amazing" to "mostly amazing," which better reflects my views.
Compare the message of PC vs. Mac to this message: "We have tools. Tools that work. Oh, and you need a genius to use them right" ?
Not if it is XCode.
That is not a tool that "works".
To me the only Mac computer ad that has stood out in the last decade or so has been the MBA out of the envelope commercial.
Avie Tevanian, Jon Rubinstein, Tony Fadell and Bertrand Serlet, all key people at various points in the history of Apple, left while Jobs was still in charge. I wouldn't read too much into this.
I'm not sure this is a major impact for Apple. Firstly, I haven't seen anything groundbreaking come from Apple on the chip side. Secondly, there are plenty of talented people from AMD, Intel,HP, etc who would love to work for Apple. He can be replaced.
When you have that kind of reservation looming about a company, you need to see encouraging signs, not the recent flow of tepid-to-bad news we've been seeing lately.
Between the ads, the loss of the CPU designer, the less-than-inspired iPhone 5 product image leaks (assuming they are real) and insignificant incremental product updates, one shouldn't be blamed for not ignoring the writing on the wall.
Encouraging signs:
* In their recent "disappointing" quarter they grew faster than Google.
* Mountain Lion has just become the fastest selling version of Mac OSX ever, shipping over 3 million copies in the first 4 days (from memory, those numbers may be a little out).
* The latest figures show iOS market share increasing despite the fact that the iPhone is due a refresh (which has historically meant sales are at their slowest).
* In a market where PC sales as a whole are decreasing, sales of the Mac are increasing.
But hell, they did some bad ads, the writing is on the wall.
Anecdotes, schmanecdotes and all that, but if one believed online enthusiasts every time Apple did something, the iPod was a joke, iPad was a flop, and iPhone 4S was an underwhelming epic fail. The actual opinion of world does not often reflect the Internet's bizarre jumble of fragmentary opinions.